


Shared Spaces

by mssileas



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 03:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13022178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mssileas/pseuds/mssileas
Summary: I know you think I'm a little differentBut I'm still somebody's son.The night before marching on the Black Gate, neither of them can sleep.-Can be read as a prequel to'Somehow, somehow..', but is perfectly fine as a stand-alone.





	Shared Spaces

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!
> 
> I'm back again with yet another Gigolas ficition, it's not an AU for once. :)
> 
>  
> 
> This throws a bunch of ideas I've been toying with together and I think they come together quite nicely.  
> As mentioned, this could very easily be read as a prequel to my WIP, so for those of you who've read that too, I hope you'll like it even though it's not exactly an update. 
> 
>  
> 
> Well anyway, enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer: Obviously none of this belongs to me, I do not make any profit from it.

Gimli woke from his sleep with a jolt.  
He couldn't remember falling asleep... he hadn't thought he possibly could in a night like this. His heart was beating fast against his chest, not quite racing, but he felt far from calm and rested. Chaotic and disturbing dreams had left a bitter taste in the back of his mouth but when he tried to remember them, his mind shied away from them, leaving the memory bland and tasteless.

The fire had burned down, but where usually moon and stars would have illuminated the small room, only a flickering torchlight on the balcony helped him see in the darkness until his eyes adjusted to it. The flame painted dark, contrasting shadows on Legolas' face, twisting it out of the familiar shape and putting it back together. Groaning, Gimli rubbed his tired face.  
If the elf knew he was awake, he didn't show it. Maybe he wasn't awake himself. Sometimes it was hard to tell.

After all, of all the things they had learned to share with each other during the past months, a bed was still not one of them. 

They had shared food and drink since the beginning, an inevitable part of traveling in a group, but the first attempts had usually resulted in them arguing about who could sustain their energy longer with less intake - which had greatly confused the hobbits, as each of them would have gladly taken any extra provision they could get.  
Gimli still remembered the confused look on the elf's face when he had finally just forced him to eat with him. Elf or no, food wasn't just about filling your stomach. It was just as much about companionship, especially in their peculiar circumstance, and he'd rather see everyone have their fair share and not be able to stuff his face to his heart's content, than to hoard it for himself. 

Obviously elves didn't think that dwarves understood the concept of sharing well enough to care about such things, but instead of calling Legolas out on that again, he had just made the elf eat his share of the dried fruits and the double-baked bread (very durable, but also very tough and crunchy, didn't taste much like real bread anymore).  
That had been right after Moria, before they had decided to make way to Lothlórien.  
Maybe that's why neither the elf nor the dwarf had felt like arguing. Between the two men and the four hobbits, Gimli imagined Legolas had felt as lost in his grief as he had himself.  
They could not cry and weep as their fellow companions had.  
Elves had no tears to shed in grief. Gimli had learned that since then.  
And a single dwarf could not mourn the thousands of lives lost in Moria, the endless generations of his kin that had built this kingdom and had fallen to ruins with it, could not mourn the loss of such an existential part of their history, so great it felt like someone had ripped his beating heart from his chest to bury it within the endless darkness of Khazad-dûm... 

 

Maybe that's why Legolas for once had simply kept his mouth shut to sit next to him instead and nibble at what was offered to him.  
That was the first time they had simply sat with each other in silence to share whatever they had called a meal back then. Not because they were hungry. But because there was little else to do until they had regained their strength to continue their journey even without Gandalf and maybe because Legolas had finally understood the gesture and accepted it for what it was. 

He had repaid Gimli in a different fashion in the woods of Lórien.  
In contrast to most mortal species, elves did not necessarily share food to express affection. They shared knowledge and skills instead, if they could.  
By now Gimli deemed himself to be the most educated dwarf around regarding trees and bushes and types of birds and even insects - and to be fair, he had been surprised by how much there was to know about them.  
He hadn't been aware that some flowers could be eaten, like fruit, just pluck them and put it in your mouth. Didn’t taste like much, a bit sweet maybe, but it was interesting. And far better than having them braided in his hair. At the back of his head. While he had been sleeping.  
Had taken him half a day to figure out why the elves had smiled a bit wider at him then, but none of the silly creatures had bothered to tell him what Legolas had done to him. It would probably have taken him even longer to notice, had Pippin not started to giggle uncontrollably every time Gimli turned his back to him.

He had learned that fireflies didn't glow because they were just happy, glow-y little bugs who didn't have anything better to do, but that the males did that to attract the females...  
And for the life of him Gimli couldn't remember exactly what he had said, but he remembered it being some rather crude joke about how that would be a quite revolutionary mating ritual for his own kin under the mountain, something about glowing dwarf-butts in the darkness, and it had ripped such a surprised laugh from the elf it had sounded almost like a snort. It had been completely undignified and Gimli's own laughter had rumbled through the silent, peaceful forest as Legolas had only clamped a hand over his mouth, stifling a helpless giggle in his palm, before someone could evict him from elf-land for laughing at a butt-joke.

 

Later he had also tried to teach Gimli how to shoot a bow, far away from prying eyes, but that had been spectacularly unsuccessful, even though Legolas had gave him credit for trying. To be fair, the elf hadn't fared much better with the axe, its weight interfered with his balance and he was as precise with it as a bear would have been. But not with necessarily as much strength behind his stroke. 

After that, it had come as no surprise to anybody that they shared the boat that took them away from Lothlórien and the Lady Galadriel, and it had once again been the elf who comforted Gimli when he felt that familiar strain in his chest at watching the Golden Lady disappear from his view.  
Ever since, they had become quite inseparable.  
Aragorn liked to joke about it, but he probably deserved to do so. After all, the poor lad had usually been in charge of keeping them out of each other's hair before they found a way to get along. And at times, that had taken some effort. 

 

The Rohirrim had seemed confused by it, at first.  
Or at least as confused as they still found the time to be, considering their rather dire situation.  
By this point, neither Gimli nor Legolas had cared much about that anymore, and with that many people around them, Gimli had found that the elf liked to stick even closer to him. Of course that meant that they shared a horse, too.  
This time, the elf’s open preference for his company made a bit more sense for the dwarf.  
Legolas just didn't _know_ many humans. He knew Aragorn, but that was hardly worth mentioning. The man had been raised by elves after all, and it showed.  
Considering that Legolas was at least two thousand years old (Gimli had yet to pry an exact number from him), he knew remarkably little about the human race. He knew what they looked like, he knew about their history, he knew important family trees... but he had no clue about their customs, their traditions, the many regional differences, they day-to-day-lives...

Gimli had spent the first 60 years of his life basically living among them - and so he found himself as almost some sort of a dwarven ambassador between the humans and an elf. The world had really taken a turn for the absurd in its last days, he had thought to himself then. 

 

And yet, they still never shared a bed.  
Not because that would have been particularly odd at this point, but because the elf didn't really sleep.  
Of all their differences, that was probably the most disturbing one.  
Gimli had come to know a few things about elves: They basically had super senses that allowed them to see or hear better than mortals, they apparently never got sick, not even a runny nose or a slight cough, and they did _something_ with gravity that Gimli couldn't quite grasp - he simply knew it shouldn't be possible to walk over snow with leaving only the barest impression of a footprint in it, while using the very same foot to break an orc's wrist as the creature had been trying to reach for its lost knife.  
Still, that was all fine and dandy. Useful, even.

But Legolas' sleeping habits had probably messed with him the most.  
At the beginning of their journey Gimli had thought the elf just never slept. Maybe they didn't need to.  
He hadn't quite understood why someone else had to keep watch at night if the elf was there, all wide awake and with nowhere to go, usually sitting up somewhere on a rock or a branch instead of lying down, and Aragorn had just laughed when Gimli finally had broken down to ask.  
Not the elf himself, of course.  
>They don't sleep like we do. They just dream.<, he had said.  
Gimi hadn't understood that, then. In order to dream you had to sleep, right? It took him some time to notice the difference, but when he saw it, he didn't know how he hadn't seen it earlier.  
Legolas' eyes had been half-lidded, his posture more relaxed than when he was awake, but he had looked at absolutely nothing in particular. Like he could see right through anything, or saw something no one else could. Occasionally he would move his lips though, unintentionally, and that never happened when he was awake. Only when he was dreaming. Gimli had discovered that for the first time shortly after they had left Lothlórien.  
It was almost fascinating to watch. And... well, a little bit eerie. 

Only once Gimli asked himself what it might look like when there wasn't one elf who did this, but ten. Or twenty, or a hundred.  
All gazing into the night sky without really seeing it, lost to a world that was only visible to them, sitting and standing - a forest full of sleepwalkers. For some reason, that image made him shiver - and not in the most pleasant way - and he never thought of it again. He tried to remember whether he had ever seen the elves in Lothlórien sleep, but he couldn't remember. 

So, he had gotten used to that.  
At night when they made camp, Legolas usually sat beside him, quietly talking to him or just humming to himself until Gimli was asleep. Whenever he woke in the middle of the night, the elf was gone. When they were camping outside, Legolas usually wasn't far off, but still by himself. When they had a roof over their head, the elf went outside, unable to find peace when four walls were closing him in. 

Here now, in Minas Tirith, their room had a balcony, opening the view over the Pelennor all the way to Osgiliath in the distance and the looming shadow of Mordor at the horizon.  
Outside, Legolas was standing absolutely motionless, but as Gimli's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw the tension radiate from his whole body, saw it etched in the handsome face.  
Slowly he made his way from the rumpled bed to join the elf, a claustrophobic feeling crashing down on him the moment he stepped outside.  
He didn't even need to ask what was wrong.  
What was wrong was in plain sight. Or rather, it wasn't. 

The dark clouds that had begun to spread from Mordor to the west now covered the sky above them... but it didn't _feel_ like clouds.  
Not even the faintest light indicated the position of the moon and no stars twinkled from between the clouds. It was just a shadow hanging over them, plunging them into darkness. 

"This isn't normal, is it...?", Gimli asked, his voice still gruff from sleep, and next to him he felt Legolas shiver ever so slightly.  
"No. It is not. I... I have never seen anything like this...", the elf responded, quietly. His voice didn't hide his fear very well, but maybe he wasn't trying to.  
He knew Sauron's shadows... the Greenwood had suffered from it for centuries. But he had been weaker then, and fighting against the Elvenking's own form of magic - rustic and nowhere near as developed as Legolas knew it had the potential to be, but effective enough to keep the threat at bay and secure their position.  
Now, with the ring so near and victory seemingly in his grasp, Sauron's power grew further and further, and the shadows spread and grew thicker with each passing hour.

"He has veiled the stars... I can feel no light from them...", Legolas whispered, his eyes fixed on a sky so black it was surreal. Only when Gimli took a surprisingly cold hand in his and carefully rubbed his thumb over its back did the elf finally look at him.  
Gimli saw despair and fear flicker in the big, blue eyes - and shame, as Legolas quickly broke his gaze away. He wanted to pull his hand away, too, as if to show that he didn't need to be consoled, but Gimli just grasped it a bit tighter and then, reluctantly, slim fingers closed around his own.

"Are you afraid?", Gimli asked him.  
It seemed to be such a pointless question. Any sane living creature would be afraid. Come the morning, they would gather what little numbers they had - _4000, if we are lucky and the men don't fail us._ Aragorn's flat voice echoed in his head - and march on the Black Gate. It was nothing short of insanity and it would only work because Sauron would not be able to resist such easy bait.  
They just had to avoid dying long enough to give Frodo a chance to get into the mountain unnoticed. 

A small frown appeared between Legolas' brows, as if he needed to think about it anyway.  
"No, I... Yes, of course I am, but..."  
He pressed his lips shut in frustration. For an elf he often found it remarkably difficult to find the right words, Gimli had noticed. He found it endlessly endearing, even now.  
"I'm not afraid of dying.", he finally said, short and simple. But Gimli felt his heavy thoughts hanging in the air, and so he just stayed silent, trying to warm cold fingers in his own hand. The elf's skin was never quite warm; usually it felt strangely like someone who had just come inside a warm room on a cold winter's night. Warming right up, but not yet at its full potential.  
He found it hard to describe, even to himself, but he knew they weren't supposed to be that freezing. 

"I don't want to die, of course. I wish it could be different. But if it can't, I'm ready. I just... I wish I could tell my father I'm sorry."  
Gimli felt a knot tighten in his stomach. He knew what had happened to Oropher and his army of elves, slaughtered like cattle in the Battle of Dagorlad. Until today, no one in their right mind ventured into the Dead Marshes - and they wouldn’t ever need to, now, Gimli thought to himself. They would just create their own, leaving behind a swamp of mud and blood to remind posterity of their sacrifice.  
By what cruel intention fate hate decided to lead Thranduil's son to the same end as his father, Gimli could not say. 

"You can't think about that.", he forced himself to say. It was a dangerous path to go down; it had made braver men run from a battle. He could not think of his own mother and father. Not when he thought about what he would tell them if only they could hear him, not when he thought of how _worried_ his mother had been when he had left for Rivendell, and how it wouldn't matter whether their bait worked or not, because her world would end anyway the moment she learned about his death.  
"I know.", Legolas muttered, before he closed his eyes for a second and finally took a long-drawn breath. His hand held Gimli's in a tight grasp now. He looked a bit more with himself again as he looked at Gimli, though his eyes were full of sorrow.  
"I need to ask something of you.", he all but declared then, and in any other situation Gimli would have found his earnest tone amusing. Now it just made him worried.  
"Alright, go ahead.", he offered, and Legolas nodded. 

Then there was silence again.  
Gimli really had gotten used to that pause before the elf said anything, as if he wanted to make sure it came out right. And then it usually didn't anyway.  
"Don't let them take me alive.", Legolas said, and suddenly the fear was back in his face and he cast his eyes down.  
"If I die in battle, I just die. But if they take me..."  
His voice broke away, and Gimli felt him shiver involuntarily, shaking his head to himself.

"He doesn't enjoy killing nearly as much as torture. Elves are hard to kill, even by injury. That's why he likes to torture us.", Legolas went on, quietly. "And because he has no other use for us - no elf will ever follow him again. He knows that. But he's going to enjoy tearing those of us who are left apart at the seams. And… of that, I am afraid."  
Instead of an answer, Gimli gently pulled at his hand now until the elf sank down to sit with him, even if the stone floor was as cold was the wall in their backs, but Legolas just pressed his body against the warmth radiating from the dwarf.  
In the flickering light, Gimli saw Legolas’ jaw clench as he lifted his head and looked to the East where an eerie, red light shone on the horizon. If looked unhealthy and violent and Gimli found he didn't like to look at it for too long. 

He had never thought about that until now.  
Gimli expected the army of orcs would just trample them to the ground - he had never come up with the idea that Sauron would take prisoners. 

As long as he could remember, The Enemy had been a large, looming threat hanging over their heads - always present but never quite able to grasp.  
If Frodo failed, Sauron would be the most powerful entitiy of Arda... one with a will and a body to execute it.  
And he would want _revenge_. The image of some stinking orcs dragging his elf - and in that constellation it was _his_ elf - screaming and crying into the fortress of Barad-dûr twisted Gimli's guts into something ugly and seething, already making him grit his teeth until he noticed that he was doing that, and forced himself to relax his jaw. 

"I won't let that happen to you.", he finally rasped after an almost painfully long silence.  
"Promise?", Legolas asked quietly, pressing even closer to him if that was at all possible, his face now so close that Gimli could feel his warm breath ghost over his skin.  
"Promise.", Gimli said, and forced himself to smile as he cupped Legolas' cheek in his free hand. "If Frodo fails, and there's an army of blood-thirsty orcs surrounding us, I'll make sure you'll die right by my side."  
Legolas leaned forward to touch his forehead against Gimli's. It was always way too gentle and more often than not ended with Legolas just resting his head atop of Gimli's, but the dwarf didn't find himself as bothered by that as he ought to be.  
"A year ago that would have seemed like the worst possible outcome.", the elf admitted, but at least the smallest of smiles appeared on the corner of his lips.  
Gimli huffed. "Now it's only the third worst outcome.", he replied dryly, but it earned him a quiet laugh.

"There's no one else I would rather ride in my last battle with than you.", Legolas said then, all serious again, and this time it made Gimli's chest clench in the best possible way.  
It hadn't been the first time he caught himself just in time from reaching out and pulling the elf into a kiss - on more than one occassion it just had felt like the most natural thing to do, with the elf always being so close, holding Gimli’s hand and braiding his hair and letting the dwarf nap on his lap, but only once had he ever tried to do so. Right after the battle of Helm’s Deep – he still partly blamed the adrenaline and the head wound on that one, even though he knew better. And always had.  
He had earned a hand on his mouth for his efforts and a look that was stuck somewhere in between amusement and an apology.  
>War is not the time for love.<, was all the elf had said about it. For the longest time, Gimli hadn't known what to do with that information. Did that mean he wanted to, but couldn't? Or did he not want to and simply tried to not hurt Gimli's feelings.  
Once again he had broken down and asked Aragorn. There had been a lot more ale involved, this time.  
Ever the talker, the man had just looked at him, shrugged and said: >It's how they are. Do you think I only fight this war so I can wear a crown?<  
And then he had laughed when Gimli had choked on the ale. 

In his mind, he tried to repeat it.  
_War is not the time for love._  
He could respect that. Whatever it was that was clearly happening between them, it could wait until after. If there was an after. That had been easy to respect as long as they still had some hope left.  
Now there would be only war for them. And then nothing.  
And now Legolas was so close to him, warming up against him, leaning his cheek into Gimli's hand and telling him things like that, and he just... 

"Can I ask something from you, too?", Gimli said, surprised that he had said anything at all, surprised by how rough his voice sounded... and, by Mahal, he didn't want to ask for anything Legolas didn't want to give him, but he knew he would die a little bit happier if he was only allowed to kiss this beautiful singing and laughing lips that curled into such a pretty smile now just once.  
"Don't ask. Just kiss me."

And with a relieved sigh, Gimli did just that.  
Come the morning, they would ride into battle. They would be ready. Maybe their deaths would have a reason, maybe they wouldn’t. He couldn’t tell.  
But right now, even under the doomed nightsky, Gimli didn’t care. He just kissed the elf like he had been meaning to for months, gentle and desperate and almost unbelieving all at the same time.  
Kissed his velvet mouth and pushed his hands into silky hair, and treasuring that soft gasp he tore from the elf when his thumb brushed a pointed ear.  
He didn't know whether war was the right time for love or not. He didn't know what had changed Legolas' mind and he wouldn't begin to guess. He was just a single dwarf, after all and all he knew about love was what he felt when he looked at that strong, beautiful creature with his golden hair and his skilled hands - and maybe that was enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Gimli!”  
Legolas voice carried over the roar of the battle.  
Gimli looked up, trying to find the flash of blond and green in the chaos and destruction around him. His boots were stuck in mud. There was blood in his face – maybe his, maybe not, he couldn’t tell. His ears were ringing, his vision turned black at its fringed edges.  
His muscles were screaming. He was screaming. His throat felt torn, as another beast fell victim to his ax. There were always more. They were too many. His ax cut an orc from chest to hip. Its guts splattered over the blood-soaked ground, steaming in the cold air. He lifted his ax again, ignoring sore muscles, and bringing it down on yet another orc. And another. Limbs parted from their bodies. Skulls cracked open.  
It didn’t matter. They would still die. 

“The eagles!”, Legolas cried.  
_”Gimli, the eagles are coming!”_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> I'd love to hear your opinion, so leave me a comment or come talk to me at my tumblr. :)  
> http://lord-of-aglarond.tumblr.com/


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